Strange Time To Take A Stand

It continues to mystify me how John Boehner remains the leader of the House Republicans. The Republican stimulus vote was remarkable in how politically tone-deaf it was. The bill as presented to the House shouldn’t have passed, but it is striking how unwilling the Republican leadership was to back a popular piece of legislation. When confronted with a similar situation in September over the bill authorizing the TARP–the Democrats had a majority but wanted, indeed needed, Republican votes for provide bipartisan cover–the Republican leadership caved and backed a bill their constituents hated and endorsed a measure of dubious merit. Of course, that was four months ago when it might have done them some good electorally. Having blown the obvious opportunity to tap into populist outrage over the bailout, which was supported by perhaps a third of the electorate at most, the leadership now decides to make their stand opposing a bill that commands support from a broad majority of the country, and they do so at a time when their stand, such as it is, will be forgotten by the time the midterms come around.

Indeed, the sudden unanimous opposition of House Republicans to this bill mainly accomplishes one thing, which is to remind everyone of how gutlessly the Republican leadership acquiesced to whatever the Bush administration wanted and how they only managed to discover some interest in resisting massive expenditures when someone from the other party is in the White House. This highlights the past fecklessness and opportunism of the current Republican leadership. Given the current mood in the country, the House GOP in ’10 will probably be received in the country about as well as the House GOP was received during the ’98 midterms. The lesson to draw from the Democrats’ defeat in 2002 is not that cooperation with the White House loses the opposition party seats in the next elections, but that challenging a very popular President on a major piece of legislation (especially when the legislation is also popular) usually ends up costing the opposition party seats.

P.S. Republican leaders may also be putting too much stock in polling that shows greater support for tax cuts as opposed to spending. Posing the question this way can produce misleading results. Naturally, most people likes the idea of receiving tax cuts, but the stimulus bill they just voted down had tax cuts–so why does the leadership think they are on the winning side of this? Even if tax cuts did not account for as much of the bill as the GOP would like, there they were. Voter identification with the GOP has already been sinking–how is opposing this measure going to turn that around? None of this is to deny that the bill in question really was terrible (which is why 11 Democrats could not bring themselves to vote for it), but the poor quality of pieces of legislation has never been a bar to Republican leaders putting their support behind bills in the past.

Update: Good news for Obama: Mark Halperin blames him for the unanimous Republican opposition. As the CW master, Halperin can be counted on to get things about as wrong as possible with great consistency, and here he could not be more wrong. The reality is quite different: House Republicans have just given Obama license to ignore them in future negotiations on the budget and on other major questions. Granted, Obama had the numbers in both houses to do that anyway, but the only thing that will really keep him from writing off the GOP members now is his own interest in being seen as a consensus-builder (or at least someone trying to build consensus).

Second Update: Jim Antle finds it strange that I would criticize the GOP leadership for opposing a bad bill and thinks this makes less political sense than the GOP leadership’s opposition. As I hoped I had made clear in the original post, I was questioning the leadership‘s impressively bad political judgement. Obviously, the House members who voted against the bailout were right in voting against the stimulus in its present form. What I find incredible is the leadership’s utter inability to provide, well, leadership, and Jim acknowledges as much. This is largely the same top leadership in Boehner and Cantor that backed an awful piece of legislation that they themselves didn’t think was worth passing but wanted to be seen doing something, deepening their voters’ disgust with them and possibly making House GOP results worse than they needed to be thanks to depressed turnout. Then, having backed the worst bill of the several they have voted on in the last few months, they have opted to engage in some kind of suicidal penance by opposing bills that are at least perceived to be beneficial to a much larger part of the public and which enjoy the backing of a President with approval ratings 65%+.

Similar to the bizarre McCain campaign’s efforts to appropriate middle-class symbolism while supporting the financial sector bailout, the House leadership managed to associate themselves with the TARP, which their constituents found outrageous, and subsequently have tried to make up for it by resisting measures that a large part of the public is likely to believe are designed to benefit them rather than a select few. It’s as if the leadership wants to strike a populist chord that resonates with middle-class Americans, but no longer has any clue how to do that and manages to oppose only the lousy measures that people tend to like while backing the ones they loathe. If that seems like a smart or effective way to rehabilitate the toxic Republican brand and facilitate a revival of a vehicle for conservative policies, Jim must be seeing something that I am not. Working to thwart the administration’s attempt to use the next tranche of the TARP would be a beginning towards making real amends for the leadership’s initial colossal blunder last fall.

There is something else about the stimulus business that annoys me. The newfound zeal for fiscal responsibility, such as it is, reveals one of the fundamental problems of the GOP leadership, which is its completely unfounded notion that the GOP is now on the skids because of wasteful spending (and earmarks!). This sounds nice, but there seems to be no reason to think this has any merit as a matter of electoral politics. The anti-earmark mania that dominated the presidential campaign and which seems to control the minds of House leaders has prevailed yet again, suggesting that once again Republican leaders have learned absolutely nothing about why they have suffered two major electoral drubbings. The leadership’s flailing, much like McCain’s during the early days of the financial crisis, sends the message that the GOP has nothing to say to the public that cannot be summed up by the phrase wasteful spending. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t oppose wasteful spending, of course, but when they have absolutely nothing else to talk about (except, God help us, the return of the Fairness Doctrine) it is more than a little frustrating to watch.

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16 Responses to Strange Time To Take A Stand

This hits the tip of the ice berg. The process made clear that Boehner doesn’t control his caucus. It was clear that if he attempted to whip support that he might not even get half his caucus. For the Republicans not only does it mean that Obama can work around them – that was the case before – but he can also accurately complain that there is no GOP House position on a given issue and be right.

While I think it may be impossible to understate the mendacity of Boehner and most of the House GOP (you are correct that this just underscores they were the party of Bush for 8 years), in fairness, they were on the horns of dilemma. As the Post’s reporting today shows, this bill is a grab bag of Democratic wishes, most of which have little relation to “stimulus.” Of course, the GOP is in trouble when it acquiesces to “stimulus” since extension of unemployment benefits is a better stimulative act than a lot of tax cuts, for example. Their only credible line of attack was to blast the Demos for wasteful spending unrelated to stimulus. But . . . hard to do that after running up record deficits for 6 years.

I guess Boehner and Co. are hoping this turns into another Clinton budget (but, minus the internet bubble with no credible way of spinning it as a success.) Always a sign that you’re out of ideas when the other side’s failure is the only game plan you have.

It seems to me that Halperin sees every political confrontation as the war and not a skirmish. His approach to journalism is more appropriate for a sports reporter than political reporter. This, of course, does not excuse his perennial wrongness. But it certainly compounds it.

In any event, I agree that the negotiations around this bill were pretext. Also, I am sure that the house Republicans will relish their victory in getting contraception funding out of the bill. Although giving poor people contraception is a popular idea, the Republicans will likely be able to vote against on its own merit at some point in the future. And Boehner’s criticism of it will likely stand out as one of the most bucolic moments of the 111th congress. Another great victory in a long string of victories for the GOP. . .

Actually, I think the actions by the House Republicans makes perfect sense. They have nothing to lose, and potentially something to gain.

Sure, the “stimulus” is popular (since most people are ignorant morons who don’t know what’s in it). But if they were to vote for it, do you think the House Republicans would get any credit? Of course not. Either way, all the credit for it will go to the Democrats who both wrote it and voted for it.

Furthermore, if the stimulus turns out to be a disaster, which buries us in debt and wastefully misallocates much-needed capital on worthless projects even as we’re trying to claw our way out of a recession a couple years from now, the GOP will be able to make a claim similar to Obama on the war: “I never voted for it in the first place, even when it was popular”.

True, the Republicans are being intellectually inconsistent in opposing this monstrosity, while going along with Bush’s monstrosity a few months ago. But as a practical matter, if the electorate is going to have difficulty remembering two years from now how House Republicans voted today, they’re certainly going to have a hard time remembering (or caring) that the Republicans voted in a contradictory manner months before.

I’m not trying to give the Republicans kudos here, though. I seriously doubt that they’ve suddenly developed any stronger conservative principles than they had just a few months ago. It’s the same idiots that have been there all along, after all. Just less of them. And sadly, this means that even if we do get conservative leadership in the White House eventually, they’ll still be next to worthless when it comes to actually undoing the damage the Democrats are going to wreak over the next few years.

Although giving poor people contraception is a popular idea, the Republicans will likely be able to vote against on its own merit at some point in the future. And Boehnerâ€™s criticism of it will likely stand out as one of the most bucolic moments of the 111th congress.

Yeah, Boehner, you big idiot! Don’t you know that three generations of imbeciles is enough?

I doubt even in its improved form the stimulus bill is going to do anything and House Republicans are right to not vote for it. The stimulus bill as it stands now is bad policy and I doubt the stimulus bill will do anything but create more debt.The ship is sinking anyways and having a bucket to pump out water is not going to do anything. We should let the whole thing wash out and only give life preservers to keep people afloat.

The problem of the Republicans is fiscal irresponsibility and image. Their titular head is an odious drug addicted radio personality, someone who looks like Hoggish Greedly in Captain Planet than a real human being. Bush, even if he screwed up, was a respectable human being but following orders from a radiohead, especially one as despicable as Hoggish Greedly, makes Republicans look weak and extreme even if they are advancing sensible policy.

Apart from taking issue with what Daniel says about negative opinion in the country about TARP (it was nowhere near as clearcut as he suggests and in any case people would have rapidly changed their minds had credit dried up overnight and six of the largest banks foundered) he’s got most of the political aspects of this right. This week alone we’ve seen about 150,000 job losses by major companies, you can double that if you throw in all the smaller losses that never make it across Brian William’s lips. To be seen to be standing in the way of a bill to address this issue even if you don’t agree with its general direction borders on idiocy particularly after the president goes through some elaborate theater designed to show everyone he’s reaching out to the Republicans. He was in a win win situation here. He wanted the GOP votes and was willing to extend a bit of effort in getting them but if they rejected it wholesale as they have he’s maneuvered them into looking like mindless obstructionists. Add in the little bit of cable sauce of Limbaugh talking about how he hopes Obama fails and screw the American people and this has not been a good week for the Republicans whatever the more partisan pundits tell you. In fact I see a pattern developing. The Ledbetter act, Schip, were clearly going to pass so what benefit is there in being pigeonholed as against equal pay for women and healthcare for kids. The blocking of the TV switch blew my mind. There’s clearly going to be problems, apparently they haven’t made enough convertors, so if it all goes pear shaped Obama and the Democrats will simply say not us!

As to the substance of the stimulus, I also believe it’s a mistake to think this is not going to have a fairly powerful effect in stimulating economic activity. It’s a huge amount of money. If we think Obama/Summers/Orzag/Pelosi/Reid are happily passing a bill they think is going to fail we’re either stupid or massively underestimating the Dems. And btw I wish some posters would stop referring to American voters as ignorant morons and suchlike because they are basically scared by what is the worst financial and economic crisis to hit the country since the depression and in a lot of their minds, it is the product of Republican mismanagement.

I would agree that opinion would have shifted sharply against opponents had the TARP been rejected and the epic disaster Paulson warned us about followed. As it is, TARP was never used for its intended purpose and while things have gotten pretty grim they have not yet descended to the state the biggest alarmists predicted. I know, I know, remember what Taleb said about Solon and Croesus, etc., and things can always get worse. That being said, public trust in the federal government in connection with the bailout is staggeringly low and hostility to the bailout remains great, and this in the wake of Citigroup’s problems. Even if I thought the bailout was the right policy, a large part of the public still hates it.

Anyway, it isn’t just in the people’s minds–much of this is directly the product of Republican mismanagement, whether we are talking sins of commission or omission. That is the even bigger reality that the GOP leaders are completely incapable of grasping or admitting. They are fixated entirely on the mortgage lenders and fiscal policy, and seem unwilling or unable to acknowledge the role of monetary policy and Bush’s housing policy in fueling the mess.

According to Feldstein’s critique in the Post, there’s no doubt there’s a huge amount of money, but he sees it as being too slow and does not promote sufficient employment and investment. In other words, if it provides stimulus it won’t be providing it soon enough and in great enough doses to pull the economy out of prolonged recession. There is the added problem that the steady efforts of Fed, Treasury and Congress to “reflate” everything is going to lead to monster inflation that, perhaps, can then be reined in later.

ottovbvs, I keep hearing that the stimulus bill is going to stimulate the economy but I am unconvinced. To establish my bonifides, I am a liberal, an opponent of the Iraq War from the get go, against Guantanamo Bay, for economic justice, Obama supporter, blah blah blah but I think the stimulus, as it is now is just bad policy. Infrastructure is just a tiny part of the whole bill even though overwhelming amount of people favor it and the bill as a whole is pretty weak (which even Matthew Yglesias admitted).

I believe the housing market is just the start of a massive falling down of the cards and things are going to get much much worse in the next two years and I don’t know how any stimulus, however popular, is going to preserve or create jobs. I know politically Obama has to do something and if Republicans kill it, they can say goodbye to their electoral prospects in 2010 but that does not mean that the stimulus is going to do anything nor do I believe tax cuts would help (If I hear anything more about corporate tax cuts, I would seriously murder someone).

We are getting further and further into debt with the same banks who are profiting off their connections with Government through TARP. A normal middle class family with absolutely no debt is now struggling because of the mistakes and stupidity of rich fat cats in Wall Street (true, some people took advantage of easy credit but with great power comes greater responsibility). How is the stimulus bill going to benefit an average man unconnected to Washington? I think Universal Health care is going to be much more helpful than a stimulus bill and I would gladly support that, no matter the cost, because I believe it is worth it but I am unconvinced of the merits of the stimulus.

Daniel:
“As it is, TARP was never used for its intended purpose and while things have gotten pretty grim they have not yet descended to the state the biggest alarmists predicted.”

That’s because basically the actions taken by Paulson, Geithner and Bernanke have essentially stabilized the banking system. We shouldn’t ignore what’s being going on in the rest of the world btw. None of it’s been pretty because basically there’s been a lot of experimentation but to all intents and purposes it’s worked and Paulson and the previous admin deserve a lot of credit. Clearly they are going to use a chunk of the remaining 350 billion to establish a bad bank to take all this toxic stuff off the bank’s balance sheets. I’ve personally come to the conclusion it’s the only solution short of nationalizing the banks. And neither I nor I think Summers, Geithner, Orzag and Bernanke think that’s a good idea. And yes I agree there is a lot of public ambivalence about the whole process but then neither Bush or Paulson could explain it in comprehensible terms. I do believe if Obama and Summers took to the airwaves they could turn this around.

‘but that does not mean that the stimulus is going to do anything ”

I think you are underestimating the impact. Feldstein agrees there need to be a massive stimulus he just doesn’t agree with the priorities. I saw an interview with Mark Zandi on tv this evening. Now he’s a conservative if anything and while acknowledging he wouldn’t have structured it the way it is, he believed it will probably work. There are going to be some more tweaks in the senate where I actually think it will pass fairly easily and we’ll have to wait and see. I saw an opinion by Warren Buffett the other day which essentially said we’re in uncharted territory so you throw eggs at the wall until some sticks and doing nothing is not an option. As usual he’ s probably not far off the mark.

“That is the even bigger reality that the GOP leaders are completely incapable of grasping or admitting”

All too true. Dems constantly accuse us of being in an alternate universe and they are not always wrong. We need to ask ourselves when we got into this box.

“There is the added problem that the steady efforts of Fed, Treasury and Congress to â€œreflateâ€ everything is going to lead to monster inflation that, perhaps, can then be reined in later.”

Since the Fed are running the printing presses to get us out of this there is a real chance of serious inflation but there’s no sign of it at present and they have tools to choke it off very quickly if they want to just as Easy Al had tools to shut down the housing bubble. He just chose not to. At the moment the danger of inflation is the leas of our troubles.

nyx, on January 29th, 2009 at 2:56 pm Said

With due respect sir I think you are letting emotion getting in the way of reason. We can all get angry with these bankers but it isn’t going to solve anything. I’m essentially with the comment by Zandi I mentioned above in that I might have ordered the priorities a bit differently (I’m a great believer in concrete) but it’s probably going to work in the round. And if it doesn’t they’ll come back to the well. One of the reasons they are steering so much money to the states is because of their fiscal condition. It’s awful. I live in CT which is facing a six billion shortfall and I believe CA is around 28 billion. They can’t allow the states to start huge layoff programs and that’s what I think is behind this.

Although I think the economy is in considerably worse shape than it was at the beginning of the Clinton administration, my suspicion is that House members recall how the GOP unanimously opposed the Clinton stimulus package in the House. It nonetheless passed, barely. The economy soon recovered, but not only did the voters decide not to hold it against the GOP, they went on to put them back in power in the House in l994!

I think the House GOP has lost its way, but on a purely political calculus, i can’t blame them for not supporting the Democratic bill. Probably the public won’t even remember this vote took place.

I’m a liberal; somewhat to the left of Kucinich. I linked to this post from RCP, so I don’t know a lot about this site… except that this is the best post with the best comments that I’ve seen on this topic. I’m both impressed and grateful so I’ll be coming back.

The big difference with the Clinton bill, though, is that it raised taxes, which is never a winning move with voters. The current stimulus is cutting taxes (ironically, largely thanks to the GOP who now can’t take credit for it) and that can’t be used as a bludgeon in the 2010 campaigns.

On the policy side, I highly recommend the short – very, very short – 1969 book Monetary vs Fiscal Policy: A Dialogue, by Milton Friedman and Walter Heller.

Friedman said:

‘The fascinating thing to me is that the widespread faith in the potency of fiscal policy – this is flying straight in the face of some words that Walter Heller spoke a few moments ago when he talked about the proven effectiveness of fiscal policy – rests on no evidence whatsoever. It’s based on pure assumptions. It’s based on a priori reasoning.’ (p. 53)

Friedman went on to cite empirical evidence that cyclical fluctuations in the American economy have been highly sensitive to monetary policy, and almost entirely unresponsive to fiscal policy.

If Friedman was right, the details of the ‘stimulus package’ will be irrelevant to whether the economy recovers in time for Democrats to claim electoral credit.

As to the substance of the stimulus, I also believe itâ€™s a mistake to think this is not going to have a fairly powerful effect in stimulating economic activity. Itâ€™s a huge amount of money. If we think Obama/Summers/Orzag/Pelosi/Reid are happily passing a bill they think is going to fail weâ€™re either stupid or massively underestimating the Dems.

First, just because it’s a huge amount of money does not guarantee anything. Remember, this is money that is being *borrowed* by the government from the private sector. If the government weren’t sucking it up, it would be getting used for other purposes. It can only stimulate the economy if the government puts it to more economical use than it would’ve been otherwise used for.

Second, I think that several of the people you just mentioned (most particularly Pelosi) are, in fact, quite stupid and/or seriously lacking in judgement. Listening to Pelosi attempt to explain how spending on birth control and STD prevention qualifies as “stimulus” leaves little doubt about that. So whether she thinks it will “work” or not is irrelevent – her judgement is such that her opinion is worthless.